


Setting a Trap

by angeloncewas



Series: a divine gift or curse [4]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Card Games, Dialogue Heavy, Discussion of it i mean, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Moral Ambiguity, Morally Ambiguous Character, No beta we die like tommy - temporarily, Resurrection, Scheming, They play so much solitaire, This isnt angst!, mention of drugs, tommy swears once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29863683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeloncewas/pseuds/angeloncewas
Summary: The void is different from the regular world. Tommy and Wilbur have plenty of time to talk.(And play dumb card games.)-“What happens if he brings me back?” Tommy asks abruptly.Wilbur seems unfazed, not even looking up from his reset of the game. “He brings you back, that seems pretty obvious.”
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), No Romantic Relationship(s), Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Series: a divine gift or curse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2195631
Comments: 20
Kudos: 189





	Setting a Trap

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this Tumblr post.](https://werenotacoupleyesyouare.tumblr.com/post/644767835464302592/tommy-is-tricking-dream-into-bringing-wilbur-back)

“You’re cheating!”

“What? No I’m not.”

Wilbur slams his hands down on the void-floor and the cards rustle slightly, as though they’re reacting to his outrage. He points at the last one Tommy placed - a five of hearts - with an accusing finger.

“You can't put two reds together.”

Tommy rolls his eyes. “Not with that attitude you can’t.”

“Tommy I swear-”

“Wilbur,” Tommy interrupts. “Big man. Big W.”

Wilbur picks up the offending card and shoves it toward him. “What?”

“I,” Tommy announces dramatically, “never learned how to play solitaire.”

“Wh- How do you _not know_ how to play _solitaire?”_ Wilbur’s voice pitches higher, indignation raw in his tone, and Tommy laughs before rifling the cards so that they layer over each other in a haphazard mess.

It’s been weeks now, according to Schlatt. He shows up occasionally, with a strangled groan and muttered words in the very same voice that once kicked Tommy out of his country. Mexican Dream comes running by sometimes too, eternally boisterous despite everything, but mostly it’s just him and Wilbur.

The void is dark. Tommy’s eyes have adjusted to the dimness, for the most part, but there are moments in which he’ll remember where exactly he is and what’s happening and it’ll all feel suffocating again. The space is endless and that only makes it more restrictive; in a sense, death is just a bigger prison cell.

Tommy breathes in a shaky breath at his own thought-spiral of what came before, a bruise across his ribs and the fabric of the universe pulling him apart. He’s grateful that Dream is not with him, he will put up with a hundred loops of Mexican Dream’s music for that small grace, but he still shudders at the memory of his final death.

 _“Go see him,”_ Dream had said, about Schlatt. Schlatt is, frankly, the least engaging part of the overall experience. The man has slept through all of Wilbur’s speeches and Tommy’s shouting and Mexican Dream’s... _whatever._ It’s almost impressive.

That doesn’t change the fact that Tommy was killed with a purpose - meant to be some kind of interdimensional messenger or something - and he can’t shake the feeling that Dream is waiting on the other side.

“What happens if he brings me back?” Tommy asks abruptly.

Wilbur seems unfazed, not even looking up from his reset of the game. “He brings you back, that seems pretty obvious.” As he rapidly separates the deck into seven neat little columns, it’s made clear how much time Wilbur has spent on the repeated motion.

“Alright _dickhead,”_ Tommy pushes the cards closest to him until they fall out of line and Wilbur scowls, nudging him away. “I meant, what happens to you?”

The silence settles with heavy weight between them, a faint snore from Schlatt, somewhere out in the void, the only distraction from the sudden still of Wilbur’s hands.

“Why do we need to worry about that?” Wilbur says lightly, amicably, distantly. “We’re here together. We have solitaire.” He gestures to the space in front of him and laughs. “We have all the drugs in the world.”

Tommy sighs. “I don’t - and I can’t believe I’m saying this - but I don’t want drugs. Drugs won’t fix anything."

“Try telling Schlatt that.”

“Wil.”

“This place isn't so bad, you get used to it-”

_“Wil.”_

“-we were everything wrong with that world and now they're free of us-”

**“Wilbur.”**

“Tommy,” Wilbur echoes softly. They’re always doing this, always pulling back and forth. Both of them came into the void begging, each for something opposite the other.

They’ve managed to fall into their old dynamic surprisingly easily, but no matter how many times they discuss it, Wilbur never seems to understand why Tommy still wants to be more than a limp body on an obsidian floor.

“You've gotta have a plan,” Tommy insists. He knows Wilbur too well to believe that there’s not at least a hint of an idea buzzing around the man’s head. “You always have a plan.”

Wilbur’s answering smile is small and secretive and Tommy, for a second, feels caught somewhere between pieces of the past. Like he’s still in his revolutionary uniform, or he’s sitting down in a ravine surrounded by a cloud of cigarette smoke, or both; Wilbur’s right-hand man in every possible outcome.

“I don’t know if it’s gonna work,” Wilbur warns. It’s a rare bit of humility, but maybe it's just for the sake of it because his fingers twirl a queen of spades with nervous energy.

Tommy leans back. “Spit it out.”

 _“If_ Dream, _somehow,_ does bring you back,” Wilbur says carefully, “I need you to act like I’m awful.”

“You _are_ awful,” Tommy scoffs. “Who plays cards for this long?”

“Tommy.”

“Sorry, sorry. Act like you’re awful, right. Evil. A 'wrongun.'” He shakes his head. “Why?”

Wilbur presses his fingertips together and leans forward like someone’s gonna hear them if they’re not careful. Like it’s all that time ago again, the two of them forming a plot to corner the drug market in a world that was only just getting to know them. Something about it makes Tommy hurt, but he pushes the feeling aside.

“Dream is never going to give you what you want,” Wilbur explains, as though he’s pitching a deal. “So you have to get him to believe you don't want it.”

“...How?”

Wilbur huffs out a laugh. “That’s what the lying’s for. Pretend that the thing you want most in the world is for me to be dead and if I know anything about Dream," he gives Tommy a pointed look, “he’ll make sure I’m anything but.”

“Isn't that…” Tommy hesitates, the image of a distant isle and a trident flight and dynamite sharp in his mind. Those memories will probably never leave him. “Isn't that manipulative?”

The cards in front of them are swept together into a perfect pile with ease and then they’re basically back at where they started. Wilbur, the one who knows the game so well he could win it in his sleep. Tommy, its ever-reluctant central player.

“I think,” Wilbur says, with all the bluntness of a man who’s long-dead, who hasn't seen sun or life or other people in a theoretical eternity, “it’s a little late to worry about playing fair.”

**Author's Note:**

> Finally:
> 
> \- I've now written three fics surrounding Tommy's death and a fourth is coming  
> \- I think it'll be the last one, it's gonna be about Dream, though yesterday's stream ruined its canon potential  
> \- Anyway, I wrote this to be a short scene for Tumblr but it got away from me a bit  
> \- Follow me there anyway :) Same @, I have over 200 drafts somehow


End file.
